“Well, that’s as it should be, Sullivan. We need have no more words about that. And now dinner’s ready, I see, so we had better fall to at that.”
Meanwhile Vander Heyden and his two friends had no sooner completed their meal than they hastened to the waggon, and summoned Matamo and Haxo to assist in repairing the damage sustained. Their first step was to renew the canvas covering, which had been torn down. Then they nailed thick boards all round the lower part of the waggon, and constructed a kind of citadel in the middle, consisting of four strong boxes, about three feet high, inside which two persons might take refuge.
“I wish you would not think so much of me,” urged Annchen, from whom it had been impossible to conceal the approaching danger. “My life is of no more value than any one of yours. And you are neglecting, I am sure, your own safely. Henryk, will you not listen to me? Mr Rivers, will not you?” She blushed deeply as she spoke.
“Say no more, Annchen,” returned her brother sternly, though with evident tenderness of feeling. “We shall all do our best for ourselves as well as for you. And there is every hope that Margetts will return before these scoundrels even begin their attack. It cannot be more than a two hours’ ride to Heidelberg. I could myself do it in little more than one; but then, unfortunately, I was only on terms of distant civility with Lieutenant Evetts.”
“It will take Margetts at least two hours,” observed Hardy; “and then there may be difficulty in finding Mr Evetts and in getting his men together. It was three o’clock when Margetts rode off. If he is back by ten, it is as early as can reasonably be hoped.”
“Ten will be time enough,” remarked Rivers. “They will wait for the moon to set, or they would be an easy mark for our bullets.”
“And the moon does not set till eleven,” said Vander Heyden. “Besides, even if they do make their attack, it remains to be seen whether we cannot keep them off. It can hardly be worse than it was at Rorke’s Drift, when we three stood side by side together. But I think we have now been as long at work in the waggon as it is safe for us to be. We might awaken suspicion if it was thought that we were fortifying it. We must get out, and not return to it until after the moon has set. Annchen, I shall wish you good-bye now. You must be in your place of shelter when we return.”
He folded her in a warm embrace, and then leaped from the waggon, forgetting that George still remained, or unwilling perhaps to witness his adieux.
George took her hand and looked earnestly into her face. “This may be the last time we shall meet,” he said. “I know I can never have my wish, but I should like you to know how fondly I love you.”
The tears rose in her eyes and streamed down her face. “I do know it,” she murmured,—“I do know it, George; I prize and I return it.”